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The New York Times bestseller-an unprecedented look into the life and character of the woman who raised a president.

Barack Obama has written extensively about his father but credited his mother for "what is best in me." Still, little is known about this fiercely independent, spirited woman who raised the man who became the first biracial president of the United States. This book is that story.

In A Singular Woman, award-winning New York Times reporter Janny Scott tells the story of this unique woman, Stanley Ann Dunham, who broke many of the rules of her time, and shows how her fierce example helped influence the future president-and can serve as an inspiration to us all.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“An ambitious new biography. . . . Scott pursues a more perplexing and elusive figure than the one Obama pieced together in his own books.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Even Obama knew that he had not his extraordinary mother justice. Janny Scott . . . does. She portrays Dunham as a feminist, an utterly independent spirit, a cultural anthropologies, and an international development officer who surely helped shape the internationalist, post-Vietnam-era world view of her son. Scott’s book is tirelessly researched, and the sections covering Dunham’s life in Indonesia especially are new and valuable to the accumulating biography of Obama’s extended global family.”—The New Yorker

“Janny Scott packs two and a half years of research into her bio of Stanley Ann Dunham, the quixotic anthropologist who raised a president.”—People

“The restrained, straight-ahead focus—rather in the spirit, it turns out, of Dunham herself—pays off. By recovering Obama’s mother from obscurity, A Singular Woman adds in a meaningful way to an understanding of a singular president.”—Slate

“The key to understanding the disciplined and often impassive 44th president is his mother, as Janny Scott, a reporter for the New York Times, decisively demonstrates in her new biography A Singular Woman. . . . Scott [uses] meticulous reporting, archival research and extensive interviews with Dunham’s colleagues, friends and family, including the president and his sister. What emerges is a portrait of a woman who is both disciplined and disorganized, blunt-spoken and empathetic, driven and devoted to her children, even as she ruefully admits her failings and frets over her distance from them.”—The Washington Post

“Meticulously-researched and well-written . . . a necessary counterpart and corrective to Obama’s first book Dreams from my Father.”—Financial Times

“In her own right, Ann Dunham was a fascinating woman. . . . The story of the ‘singular woman’ at the center of this book is told, and told well, by Scott.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“What emerges in this straightforward, deeply reported account is a complicated portrait of an outspoken, independent-minded woman with a life of unconventional choices.”—USA Today

“We get a much fuller story of Ms. Dunham’s life in A Singular Woman, Janny Scott’s richly researched, unsentimental book.”—The New York Times

“If you want to understand what shaped our president, don’t look to his father’s disappearance. It was his unconventional mother who made him. . . . [An] incisive biography.”—Newsweek

“Scott gives us a vivid, affecting profile of an unsung feminist pioneer who made breaking down barriers a family tradition and whose legacy extends well beyond her presidential son.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)

About the Author

Janny Scott was a reporter for The New York Times from 1994 to 2009, when she left to write this book. She was a member of the Times reporting team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

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Well written biography of this amazing woman. Such a pity she did not live to see her sonbecome President ... pity he wrote a book on his absent father ... dreams of nothing ....his mother was a lady of outstanding courage and intelligence who bucked the system and followed her heart, Heis his mother's son. His father provided only the colour which gave people like Trump, the alt right,the ignorant old men in the GOP the excuse to deride his birth and make his presidency difficult, at times impossible at times, just because of his father's origins. Ironically we have a full white man in the office todaytotally unfit for the position in every respect.

Loved this book. I believe it showed the real human being who was Barack Obama's mother. It illustrated her conflicts, struggles and stalwart efforts to follow her heart and her head in a time when we were told that that was a worthy goal. I am a person of Ann Dunham's time and demographic---I feel like I understand her actions because deep inside I know who she is. It is a well written book that can engender these kinds of feelings with the reader. It is easy to see how such a stunning personality as Barack Obama emerged from this environment, but it also shows the truth in Hillary Clinton's observation that "it takes a village." Ann had much support from her parents and her second husband--as well as some university colleagues. She gave as much as she got and in her case, that was a phenomenal effort. I just loved her for her humanity, and her universal sense of caring despite her organizational foibles and total lack of guile. I loved her and believe that she is the source of any greatness that emanates from her son, albeit not without the help of granny and the support network! Delightful read, complex person.

Great insite into the life of Obama, his mother and sister and how their mother supported the family for nearly twenty years in Indonesia through grants from the Ford Foundation before she graduated. The effort she made in researching small, mountainous, fledgling businesses was at a great expense to herself and her kids. She studied both Indonesian men and women and helped them secure financing to expand their products through banks that later employed her. Being very eccentric she found later in life that she didn't fit into the image Obama wanted for a parent and was literally shunned by him and his wife, Michelle, and being white was merely a part of it. It's apparent that she had a self-image problem and choose to take on the persona of an Indonesian as she had taken the persona of an African when married to Obama's father. She did this by dress. Very complex person. Interesting.

This is a well researched and beautifully written biography of President Obama's mother, a lady who absolutely deserves some recognition in her own right. I actually owned a copy of the book, which I allowed someone to borrow, and then never saw it again....and felt compelled to buy another copy of it! That says something about how much I enjoyed it! The book includes a detailed history of Ann Dunham's very old Kansas families, and when I visited the USA [I am from Australia], I visited Wichita, El Dorado and Augusta in Kansas and took photos of the very old family graves in El Dorado, Winfield and Peru, all in Kansas....as a result of having read this book.A great read! Highly recommended!

Amazing story of barack Obama's mom told in great detail with wonderful research. Reading this book will give you insight into Obama's personality and style of leadership, influenced greatly by his mom who died before Obama became president. Dunham was doing micro-financing with women before it became popular. Her anthropological and practical approach to helping people climb from poverty in Southeast Asia is a fitting tribute to this unique individual.

A very interesting book about an unusual, strong and altruistic woman. I am glad to have read it but I must say that I felt there was far too much detail about the arts and crafts of Indonesia. I ploughed through them all but think that they did not really add anything to the book, nor to an appreciation of the Singular Woman in question. The atmosphere of her life was conveyed well and I think the book would appeal to a broader public if there had been far less detail about the said arts and crafts. The personal photographs were magnificent and wonderful to see.

This book goes to the heart of an outstanding but somewhat confused woman who doggedly pursued her ambition to a PhD while off and on mothering the kid who was to be our President. Gives a bit of new light on her parents who played such an important role in the bringing up of President Obama. A must for Obama devotes and a lesson in the importance of parentingeven parenting with what seems to be a bit of love and ocasional indifference. Not your typical home environment.

A must read book for anyone who is interested in Barack Obama or more importantly...chasing dreams or overcoming challenges or facing hardship or vindication or passion or just being human in general. The entire book reads like an amazing novel with Ann Dunham as a very human herione who seems to triumph by sheer force of will.. It is almost impossible to put this book down This book is so many, many things besides a Plulitzer Prize worthy biography. It is hard not to be uplifted and moved by this complex woman.Alas, it is a tragedy, but a tragedy that proves worthy of a lasting legacy. Janny Scott did Dr. Ann Dunham justice. A meaningful, powerful book!